


Peaches

by red_starshine



Category: Constantine (TV), Hellblazer & Related Fandoms
Genre: Arguing, Baking, Cooking, Dinner, Gen, Pie, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-25 11:19:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3808417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_starshine/pseuds/red_starshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chas tries to make dessert. John attempts to help Chas. Neither are entirely successful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [visiblemarket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/visiblemarket/gifts).



> For morethanonepage/visiblemarket's prompt of : 'How about a fic where John and Chas have a stupidly big fight, but it's about something stupidly minor and not that big a deal, as opposed to all of the really legitimate things they could be fighting about. Like, John keeps leaving the lights on in rooms he's not in, or forgetting to bring back things he's supposed to from the grocery store, or else Chas does something that slightly inconveniences John. Basically, John/Chas domestic bliss.’
> 
> Thanks so much for the prompt morethanonepage! I had a great time with it! c:

They were out of shortening.

Chas sighed, looking over his shoulder at the rest of the assembled ingredients for his grandma’s recipe for peach cobbler on the counter behind him: one pound of peaches he’d peeled, pitted, and sliced sitting in a bowl, all-purpose flour, granulated sugar, lemon juice, butter, an egg, cornstarch, nutmeg, orange juice, cinnamon. He had everything out and ready to go except the shortening.

He swore under his breath. “John?” he called. 

“What?” said John from the next room, playing a game of solitaire with a deck of playing cards he’d found in Jasper’s closet.

“Can you do a grocery run and get me a can of shortening? There isn’t any in the fridge and I need it for the cobbler.”

Chas heard John stand up slowly. “Shortening? That’s uh, like one of those blocks of cooking fat?” John said as he entered the small kitchen.

Chas nodded. “Yeah. Like that. I’d go get it myself but I have to keep an eye on dinner,” he said, looking at the oven . “I can start in on preparing the filling at least, but I need the shortening to make the dough.”

John didn’t look ecstatic to be heading out to the grocery store, but shrugged after a moment. “Yeah, all right, I guess I can do it. Do we need anything else while I’m out?”

“Uh, hang on.” Chas grabbed a small list from the front of the refrigerator. “There’s the grocery list.” He pulled out his wallet, handing John a crisp fifty-dollar bill. “And here’s some cash. Just bring me back the change.”

“All right,” said John as he pocketed both the lift and the cash, looking only slightly out of his depth. He grabbed his trenchcoat from a small rack near the spiral staircase. “I’ll be back soon, I think.”

***

In retrospect, sending John out to the grocery store instead of going himself had been a mistake.

John had tried his best, he really had, and to his credit he’d managed to get all of the items on the shopping list - except, of course, for the one item that Chas had really needed.

Chas stared at John impassively. “You forgot to get the shortening. ”

John visibly bristled. “Well maybe if you hadn’t given me ten thousand other things to get in the span of the five minutes before the shop closed for the night I would’ve remembered to pick up your fuckin’ tin of solidified veggie oil.” 

“John, I needed that for the dough," said Chas, attempting to not raise his voice. 

 John clenched and unclenched his fists. “I know, I know, I was just tryin’ to do you a soddin’ favor, mate!” he shouted.

Chas glared down at him. “Yeah, well, you get an ‘A’ for effort, but you got me everything except the one thing I was sending you out to get in the first place. ”

“Because you gave me the friggin’ ‘War and Peace’ of shopping lists!” John shouted back.

Chas accusingly thrust out the wooden spoon he’d been using to stir the filling towards John. “Don’t give me that. You were the one who asked if we needed anything else from the store.”

John frowned, “I know I did! And let me tell you, I friggin’ regret asking as soon as you gave me that list. I thought you’d tell me to pick up some more milk and a carton of eggs or some shit like that,” said John through clenched teeth. “Not get a week’s worth of fuckin’ food!” Both of his hands reached into the pockets of his trench and pulled out his carton of Silk Cuts and his lighter.

While John lit a cigarette and glowered at him, a frustrated Chas turned back to the stovetop, angrily stirring the peach filling for the cobbler simmeing in a large pot before it had a chance to burn.

John could never follow instructions to the letter, even relatively simple ones. It wasn’t like Chas had told him to go out and find him the Holy Grail, he’d just wanted a stupid can of shortening that cost about five bucks.

“Can’t you make the dough without the shortening?” John asked a moment later, sounding as if he was struggling to get his temper back under control and only having minimal success.

“Shortening makes the dough light and flaky, less dense,” said Chas tersely, trying to reign in his own temper. “Without it, the cobbler’d never cook.”

“So, the cobbler’s fucked then?” said John flatly.

He sighed, his anger at John draining out of him. “Yeah, looks that way,” he said as a timer dinged somewhere. Grabbing the oven mitts, he opened the oven door and took out the pan of eggplant parmesan he’d been cooking for dinner and let it cool slightly on the stovetop. He turned off the heat on the peach cobbler filling while he decided how to salvage it. “John, could you set the table, please?”

John opened his mouth as if to argue but stopped himself, realizing that getting into a fight with Chas right now would only delay dinner further. “Fine, “ he said sulkily.

While John quickly threw silverware, napkins and drinking glasses down on the table, Chas got out two plates and cut two pieces of the eggplant parmesan, a large one for him and a smaller piece for John.

John was already sitting at his place at the table, his cigarette stubbed out in his empty water glass, when Chas brought the two plates over and set John’s down in front of him. Chas inwardly sighed, got a new glass for John from the cupboard and filled it up with water from the tap. 

John silently started in on the eggplant parmesan as soon as the plate was placed in front of him, which was made with enough marinara sauce and melted cheese that for once he didn’t complain about the vegetables.

“How is it?” asked Chas, placing John’s new glass on the table next to the one he’d used as an ashtray.

John shrugged, staring down at his plate. “All right, I guess.”

Chas took his first bite of dinner. A thought occurred to him and he glanced up at John and had to stifle his laughter.

John paused with his eggplant parmesan halfway to his mouth, staring at Chas. “What?”

“I’m an idiot,” said Chas, shaking his head slightly.

“Well, yeah, ‘pose I’m not going to disagree with you there.”

Chas leaned back in his chair slightly. “No, it’s...I just realized what I can make with the peach filling with the ingredients I already have here.”

“What?”

Chas gave him a slightly sheepish grin. “Peach pie.”

John buried his face in his hands.

***

The sweet scent of a freshly-baked, made-from-scratch peach pie wafted through the mill house.

“Is it ready yet?” grumbled John from the table, tilting his chair back from the table on two legs. He had an ancient grimoire lying open on his lap and had been writing translations to its spells on the notepad next to him. Since the pie had come out of the oven, he’d been staring at the pie sitting on the counter either like it was prey or like it was about to explode.

“It’s still cooling,” said Chas as he wiped down the counter, which was now covered in flour. “You’d burn your mouth if you tried to eat it now.”

John rocked his chair back and forth slightly, clearly growing impatient. “Mate, that better be one fuckin’ incredible pie for all the grief that went into its creation.”

“Give it a few more minutes and you can tell me if it was worth it. All I know is, Grandma Chandler hasn’t steered me wrong yet.”

 A half hour later, Chas declared the pie cool enough to eat. He carefully cut a slice for John and himself, topping it with homemade whipped cream. “There you go.” He set John’s plate and a fork down next to the dusty grimoire. “What do you think?”

John carefully took a bite of the still-warm pie and chewed thoughtfully. His eyes grew wide and full of awe.

"John?"

“Chas, your grandmother was a goddess,” John said quietly when he was able to speak again, quickly carving off another sliver of peach pie.

“Glad to hear it,” said Chas, sitting down next to John with his own plate of peach pie.


	2. EXTRA - First Attempt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was my first pass at the prompt. I ended up going in a different direction for the final one, but I liked this one too, so I thought I'd put it up as well. It uses John's unique method of learning spells as a jumping-off point, and is what I think of as the very first time John tried to learn a new spell while Chas was living at the mill house. (But sadly features no peaches.)

Chas smelled the blood in the mill house before he saw it, and it was only slightly worrying that it didn’t immediately make him start to dry-heave.

There were a circle full of bloody footprints contained by a thin ring of salt on the floor in the middle of the mill house, and a large cup of what Chas sincerely hoped was pig’s blood tipped over on its side in its own dark puddle next to it.

Chas let his travel bags drop to the floor, well outside the circle of blood. A single trail of dark red footprints stepped outside the salt circle and out of the room, probably towards the nearest shower. God only knew what he’d find in there. The tub probably looked like someone’d been stabbed to death in it.

“’ullo, Chas,” said John, emerging from the upper level of the mill house, completely free of any blood and dressed in his white shirt and black pants, his grinning face looking extremely punchable at the moment.

Chas could only point wordlessly at the bloody footprints on the floor for a moment. “John, what the hell.”

“Hm?” John looked behind him at the remains of his magic circle. “Oh. Right.” John grabbed a leather-bound book with two metal clasps keeping the pages shut from the table nearby. He popped open the clasps and opened it to where a ribbon bookmark had been placed. He pointed to one passage of small, handwritten text. “I was translating this grimoire I found buried in Jasper’s library and I found a spell I’d never seen before to locate lost things--”

Chas let out an incredulous snort. “Great, can it find your good sense?” he said, staring down at the magic circle. “Because right now, what I’m seeing is that you poured animal blood all over yourself while I was gone and didn’t bother to clean any of that shit up.”

John visibly bristled, snapping the ancient book shut with a scowl and a large cloud of dust. “This is a spell nobody’s tried in over a thousand soddin’ years, Chas. Some dried thyme and a few white candles aren’t going to--”

Realizing that nothing coming out of John’s mouth was going to be an apology, Chas tuned him out, taking took off his hat and letting it drop onto his overnight bags. His attention focused on the puddle of dried blood surrounding the cup lying nearby. His nose wrinkled in disgust. “Jesus, John, that thing stinks. Exactly how long has it been sitting there?”

He watched John’s eyes dart away from him for a moment, probably trying to figure out how many days he could shave off his response without Chas immediately calling him out on lying. “Two days.” That probably meant it’d been sitting there for close to three days - almost as long as he’d been away.

Living with John was like living with a small child sometimes, albeit a child who had a somewhat disturbing fascination with the dark arts and the occult. Chas sometimes wondered if there’d ever be a day when he’d come back to the mill house from one of his trips to Brooklyn and find the whole place on fire or sucked into another dimension due to whatever mischief John had gotten himself into unsupervised. Chaos always seemed to follow at John Constantine’s heels.

“You know John,” said Chas flatly, disappearing into the hall closet to pull out the cleaning supplies he’d need, “Even my eight-year-old knows better than to just leave a huge mess lying around for days and days.”

John’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “What exactly are you sayin’, mate?” he said.

Chas rolled his eyes, unseen by John. “I’m pretty sure you can figure it out,” he said, emerging with an empty bucket, a small trash bag, rubber gloves, a large sponge, a roll of paper towels, and a brown three-gallon jug of hydrogen peroxide. Chas placed everything except the bucket on the table next to the bloodstained floor.

“Well, excuse me for doin’ everything I can to raise my soddin’ magic skills in the face of the rising darkness,” said John angrily. “It took me hours and hours to get that fuckin’ spell nailed down and I was so bloody exhausted afterwards I nearly passed out in the tub.”

Chas sighed as he filled up the bucket with cold water from the tap in the kitchen. “John, I’m not upset that you tried to learn a new spell,” he said, trying to keep his temper under control. Flying off the handle at John would take more energy than he had right now. Once he brought the bucket of water back to the table, he removed the cap to the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and just poured it directly on top of the bloody footprints to let it soak for a moment or two. “Hell, I’m not even mad that you had to drench yourself in blood to learn that spell. But that you just left this huge mess for me to deal with? That’s upsetting.” Chas stared up at John, letting his frustration be clearly visible on his face. “I’ve been in the cab for over eight hours today, drove through five states. Jesus, John, scrubbing pig’s blood off the floor isn’t even close to what I want to be doing right now.”

“I was going to clean it up,” said John sulkily, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his pants. “Eventually.”

“Good to hear,” said Chas. “Go get the stiff-bristled brush out of the closet and come help me.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Some recipes I've found for peach cobbler don't include shortening - I was operating under the assumption that Chas didn't want to deviate too much from the recipe he had.


End file.
